Changing the Rules

Rick Paine's company:  American College Connection

Rick Paine's website:  https://accrecruits.com/

Jim Comey's Website:  https://www.stagesofimagination.org/

Bonnie's Website:  www.MariposaPhotoOrganizing.com

Bonnie's YouTube Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMjKpUeiB-o&t=1797s

Transcription:

Intro  00:03

Welcome to Changing the Rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best lives and advice on how you can achieve that too. Join us with your lively host, Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.

Ray Loewe00:20

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Changing the Rules. You know, Changing the Rules is about the fact that we're all given too many rules in life. They start with our parents, and then the schools, and then the church. And before we know it, our lives are cluttered with rules. And rules do two things: they tell us what we have to do, and what we can't do. And the next thing we know, we're living other people's lives and not our own. So Steve Jobs, the former CEO of Apple said, when you're living your life by other people's rules, you're not living your life. And we represent here the luckiest people in the world who run off, design their own lives and live them under their own terms. And we have one of those people with us. Bonnie Shay is a person who I've known for a good number of years. I won't tell you how many because I met her when she was very young. She has a company called Mariposa Photo Organizing, and she does some really unique things with old photos to organize them for people. So Bonnie, say hi to everybody. 

Bonnie Shay01:34

Hello, everybody!

Ray Loewe01:35

No. Hi, everybody. See, there you are, you're breaking the rules already! So tell us in a minute or two, what you generally do for people and how you've specialized over the years.

Bonnie Shay01:51

So I have helped my clients with their photo collections, and I've narrowed it down to the printed photo part of their collections because that's what I love doing. I just love tangible photos. And to me, Ray, those photos are at the highest risk of a: being lost or damaged in the natural disasters that we unfortunately have or a fire a flood. But also, I feel like the printed photos, since they typically are of older nature, I want to make sure their stories are told before the people behind the stories that know the story, aren't here to tell them. Because I'm all about someone being able to share their photos and leave a legacy with their photos.

Ray Loewe02:36

Cool. Okay, so I'm shutting you up here. So, I actually have a hidden agenda, and I'm gonna get to what I want to get to. But first, when you go get a new client, you're picking up a box of photos. 

Bonnie Shay02:55

Well, I'm gonna have to correct you, Ray. It's not a box of photos. It could be 17 boxes of photos, but you're right.

Ray Loewe03:03

Okay, so typically, why do people hire you? They have these boxes of photos, what do they want out of it, where are they going with them?

Bonnie Shay03:13

So when a potential client reaches out, basically, they are overwhelmed with their lifetime of printed photos that are in lots of boxes and albums. And they just haven't looked at them most likely in a long time, because they've been probably hiding around in their whole house in different places. And so my clients are stuck, they don't know what to do, they don't know where to go with their printed photos. In their mind it is like this big mountain of photos, and they don't know how to attack it. It's basically a big mess, and I don't say that in a critical fashion. But if you're a boss, and the boss says they're in various states of disarray or order, and what do we do with them? So I basically come in and lead the clients through what I call my curation process, because we want to make sure this treasure of photos are in a state that are going to be shared, and managed, and fixed from any disaster.

Ray Loewe04:07

Okay, let me interrupt for a minute because I understand safe, you know, you want them to endure, and some of these are fragile. But what I'm really interested in here is what are people trying to do with these photos at the end. Or is it capturing stories? Is it just capturing images? You know, where are they going?

Bonnie Shay04:35

For me, it's all about the story, which is what these people want. It's the photographic story, but we want the text as well. And who is in the photos? Because basically, these clients want to leave this story to their kids and their grandkids. And it's their history. It's their family history, and it brings back memories and discussion topics because it's fun to see these old photos to talk about, oh, what happened back then? Or who was that? Oh my gosh, Mom, I've never seen you when you were 10 years old. That's you at two years old. So it's really good storytime that can be shared when the photos are available. 

Ray Loewe05:17

Yeah, I can tell you right now, our engineer Luke is sitting here cringing that somebody would see a photo of him when he was two years old. Right? Okay, so back, you have a process for dealing with this. Take us quickly through the process so people know what you have to do. But then I want to come back and focus on the result and how when we take photos, we can make sure we get the results that we want.

Bonnie Shay05:42

Absolutely. So the basic process is a: you gather all these photos together, b: we want to put them in a general chronological order. And we're not going for perfection, but we like to see our stories played out over time. And then you want to edit them so we get a reasonable amount of photos that we're gonna eventually scan so that we can have them digitally. And I want to emphasize, and I'll probably say this several times during our podcast, Ray, we want to focus on quality, over quantity. Because even if we magically organize 30,000 photos of the printed photos, they're still going to be overwhelming. We want to get the highlights, the best of the best stories, and each photo needs to tell a story. And let me share one quick, or two quick ideas of how people can know what's good, and what's not when you're in the editing phase of looking at your photos. Number one, if you have a picture of the Eiffel Tower, that's the Eiffel Tower. To me, that's not memorable or meaningful, because any of us could go on the internet now and get a picture of the Eiffel Tower. But if you were standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, that makes a story that tells us, oh, you were in Paris.

Ray Loewe06:55

And I'd ruin the picture.

Bonnie Shay06:58

We'll talk about that later, Ray. You didn't break the camera, though so, we're okay. And then number two is we don't have to perfect photos. So when I tell my clients I'm editing your collection without their help, maybe because they're not able to help me, and I see a picture of a three-year-old with a chocolate covered face. Some people would say, well, that's a terrible picture. It's a mess. No, no, no throw it out. And I want to say no because maybe that was the child's first chocolate ice cream cone and there's a story behind that photo that we want to tell and preserve. So, it's all about storytelling in pictures that we want to have our quality, but they don't have to be perfect. And one other thing I want to suggest to people if you're going through your own printed photos, we remove duplicates, we remove redundant photos, we reduce and remove poor quality photos. Like if it's blurry or fuzzy. And we have better pictures than the blurry, fuzzy version. So it's all about editing. And then the end result is we end up with a much smaller quantity of photos. But we have meaningful stories, photos that can tell your story. And my clients are thrilled and relieved when we have a curated collection. And they don't have these boxes and boxes and boxes.

Ray Loewe08:19

Yeah, and sometimes people don't even know who the people were in these photos. So some of your job is trying to identify people. Trying to track them down and trying to put together the stories. Sometimes after the people that are involved aren't here anymore. Good luck.

Bonnie Shay08:39

Right. And Ray, this time, what I'm trying to help my clients avoid is getting to the place where they don't know who's in them.

Ray Loewe08:46

All right, so here's where I want to go. And we can come back to your processing techniques, and I can attest the fact that you do wonderful things for people who get to the state in life where they're trying to find meaning in their past and have a mess on their hands. So, what I want to do is we're coming out of this COVID thing now and I'm starting to think again about traveling. I'm starting to get my camera out and clean it it up a little bit and make sure I have all the cards and the lenses and that they all work and all of that stuff. And one of the things that I've realized in the past is that I love being out taking pictures. I don't love so much sitting at home in front of my computer and processing the bad photos that I took. And I also have had a change in thought of where I'm going. My past was to go to the jungle in Africa, or the Galapagos Islands and capture these portraits of animals that were unique and different, that I could hang on the wall. Now, in a sense, that's a story. But, what I'm more interested in now is taking a trip and saying, okay, tell me in six photos, what this trip was all about. So what I want to do to you here and I do mean do to you is because I want you to rethink and reposition yourself. If you're on the other side of the lens, and I know you have experience here, because you grew up in a family of photographers, we won't go there right now. But tell me how to rethink. I'm planning a trip. So how do I spend less time in post-processing? How do I get the photos I really want? How do I think through what the stories are going to be? So that if I went to you afterward, you'd look at me, laugh at me, and say it's done. So impart your wisdom. Go ahead. You have 14 seconds.

Bonnie Shay11:10

Exactly right. So, a few thoughts I want to share with you and with your listeners is that being overwhelmed with too many photos is not a comfortable position, whether they were printed or digital. So once again, I want to say quality over quantity. So we're not about shooting off 30 photos of the same thing. We want to be careful, so overwhelm is what we want to avoid. Also, I want to help you prevent the clutter before it happens. So that's why we're going through this whole process, that you won't get home at the end of the trip and have 10,000 pictures. And then I want to give you credit Ray, because when we were doing our pre-plan call on this, you said, let's call this photo organizing in reverse. Like we're planning ahead, so you don't have this mess at the end of a trip, which, to me having a plan is the best place to be in life in general. And if you can practice that plan repeatedly, you'll get even better at it. So let's talk about my thoughts about planning ahead for a trip, and how you're going to get this photo essay. So in my mind, think about who is your audience? Are you your audience? Or your spouse or your kids? Or grandkids? Who would be your audience that would enjoy this photo essay? And where am I going, you know, maybe you're just going down the street, or maybe you're going to Morocco or Africa. And you could do some research on where you're going so you can get a sense of what you might see. So you're not just surprised when you get off the plane. And you've got to stop number one, it's like, oh, I didn't know I was gonna see this kind of place, you could do some pre-planning. So another concept is to keep in mind what photos not to take. So I already mentioned the Eiffel Tower idea, right? But keep that in mind. Because if you get home with 20 pictures of the Eiffel Tower with nobody in front of them, that was a waste of your time and storage space. So think about what photos you want to be careful of not taking. General scenery is basically what you don't want to take except a few environmental pictures because you want to remember where you were or what city. So if you need to take a picture of something that reminds you where you were if you're on a 10-day cruise, that's helpful. But a specific thing that I think is also helpful if you want to keep up to date with your photos as you're taking them. So let's say you're going on a 10-day cruise. How about at the end of each day, before you go to sleep at night, you go through the photos you took that day and do some light editing. Let go of stuff that's obviously garbage or redundant, or it didn't come out the way you wanted it to. But once again, you're helping yourself get home at the end of the 10 days and not have the 10,000 photos. You've curated them along the way. And I already said this, but practice makes perfect. So by editing each day, you're getting a better flow and a better sense of what you're getting and what you want at the end of the day.

Ray Loewe14:32

Okay, so I've been thinking, this is trouble. So one of the things that I found is that if I'm going to a city that I've never been to, there are websites available of photographers who have taken pictures in the city, and I found some of them are pretty interesting because they can show you where to stand to get the best picture. Or where to capture the best light to highlight something. So if I want a picture of the Eiffel Tower that I'm going to consider a fine art picture, I'm going to hang it on my wall, and I want to make it mine, the perspective of it needs to change. And so otherwise I could go by the picture of the Eiffel Tower. That's what you're telling me? Right? I think I think the second thing is, you really have to think about whether or not it's something you want to hang on the wall, or whether it's something that you just want to put down in front of somebody and tell a story. Now, remember going over to people's houses that have just gotten back from a trip and you see 47 million slide photos of ugly pictures of ugly people. So again, you're saying you avoid this by just cropping every day, get rid of the especially the blurred images and the stuff that's there, get rid of it, focus on the quality? Focus on what are you going to do? Are you trying to tell the story of trying to hang something on the wall? Any other things that you can think of?

Bonnie Shay16:12

Yeah, so let's say you're having a family trip, and you're taking grandkids and kids and relatives and siblings. You're going on maybe a family reunion. And so you might want to do some post pictures because you want to get a whole group shot. I also want to give people the concept that when I'm going through my client's photos, the post stuff is not as interesting as the candid photos. Yes, posed, you are getting the people you know but there's not much emotion with somebody looking at the photographer straight in the eye and smiling when he says they cheese. So think about candid photos, it sort of is in line with your idea of maybe a picture of the Eiffel Tower, but do something different about it like an angle or take it when it's sunrise or sunset. It's not just the perfect Eiffel tower that everybody else has seen. But candid versus posed is a great differentiating factor and what you're going to get quality with. My other suggestion is for those of your listeners who have printed collections, and maybe they haven't worked on them, but you are planning a trip in the near future that you want to go and take your phone, your digital camera, I would say a good little homework assignment for practice is to go through your printed photos just lightly. Don't try to curate them right there. But look at them and see what kind of pictures generate emotions, especially pictures from your past, the story that you're loving to see in your photos, and that might just give you some good insights, and some good emotions that you can take towards the future of taking your own photos and making these valuable and meaningful photo essays.

Ray Loewe17:58

Cool. Okay, I think you helped me think through some interesting things. I mean, I'm really excited about getting back in the photography world. I haven't taken any pictures the last two years. And I think you're absolutely right, think of the pictures that have meaning. Think about how you want to pose them. Do a little homework. Think like a photo organizer in reverse. Right? All right, so Bonnie Shay, Mariposa Photo Organizing, we'll put her website up on our notes later. If you have these boxes of photos, Bonnie is a great photo detective, she can feel the paper that it was taken on and know when that picture was taken, she can find a face in that photo and then find those faces in other photos. And, Bonnie, thank you. I know I put you on the spot because this isn't what you do. But I think it will help us a lot to think about what we're taking before we get to that stage where the memories are made. So any final comments from you before we bail out here?

Bonnie Shay19:10

No, what I'll say is I'll also give you a link to a YouTube video that I was part of that people if they want to know more about printed photos and need a little more instruction. I'm happy to share that you can just go on and see. You know, I talked about the process in more detail, which, as we already talked about digital, but the curating a printed collection and digital collections are parallel processes. They're just different formats. But I think it could help people in general as well.

Ray Loewe19:38

Sure. So send me that link. We'll post it on our podcast and thank you for being with us. And Bonnie Shay, Mariposa Photo Organizing, you know that Mariposa is too long a word. I understand it's a butterfly. Okay, and you're a flighty person. But other than that, have a wonderful day, and Luke, sign us off, please.

Outro  20:02

Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules. Join us next week for more conversation, our special guest, and to hear more from the luckiest guy in the world.

Carol Patton's Website:  https://adventuresofmo.com/

Transcription:

Intro  00:03

Welcome to Changing the Rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best lives and advice on how you can achieve that too. Join us with your lively host, Ray Lowe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.

Ray Loewe00:17

Welcome to the luckiest guy in the world podcast called Changing the Rules. We're sitting here today in our brand new podcast studio in Willow Street, Pennsylvania. We have a revisiting guest, we have Carol Patton, who was a freelance writer all of her life. We're going to get to her in a minute, and she's going to talk about her project that she's working on. But we're going to do something else today. We have Luke Cagno sitting at our board and we just decided that we're going to pull him into the podcast today because Carol is going to ask me a bunch of questions I don't know the answer to. And I don't want to feel stupid all alone. So welcome, Luke. And Carol Patton out in Las Vegas, how's the weather out there today?

Carol Patton00:59

It is beautiful. No more wind like it was yesterday. Thanks for having me.

Ray Loewe01:16

Okay. So first of all, let me say that Carol was a freelance writer for most of her life, and she changed, kind of as the industry changed, and she picked up a project that is immersing her in life right now. And let me remind you, if you want to know more about Carol, she was on one of our earlier episodes. If you go through our files, it happens to be Episode 84, and she was on in September of 2021. So, Carol, we're all a year older now, and maybe wiser, maybe not. So say hello to everybody.

Carol Patton01:54

Good morning, everyone. Or I should say good afternoon, depending where you are in the country. It is a pleasure to be here, we are going to have lots of fun today.

Ray Loewe02:02

Cool. So the MO project is what life is all about for you right now. And you know, you're so lucky to have a project like this because I don't think people have a project that can drive them and can be as interesting as this one has turned out to be. So give us a quick synopsis of what the MO project is all about and what you're trying to do.

Carol Patton02:27

Sure, many years ago, I started writing a children's story about a dog and a bird that finds a key attached to a key chain that says Florida, they don't know where Florida is. So they travel on top of a delivery truck without the driver's knowledge to every single state in the country, and they learn things about every state. And the story teaches them a little bit of geography, history, cardinal directions, but most importantly, it's fun. And how this project started was it sort of took on a life of its own, because I started discovering so many fun facts and interesting things about every state. But I could not cram them into each chapter. So I started expanding the book, which is called The Adventures of Mo. And now it's a project, it has many legs and arms and attenae. And so now I've written state blogs, more than 20 so far, with all of these interesting facts and bits of trivia that people might be interested in learning about.

Ray Loewe03:33

Now, before we go into the actual triviality stuff over here, this project has taken you into a whole different lifespan, because you go out now and you talk to kids in schools, right?

Carol Patton03:46

Yes, I've done over 16 presentations so far.

Ray Loewe03:50

And your goal here is to get kids interested in learning about the United States and about life. And what else?

Carol Patton03:59

Well, I want to get them first interested in reading and writing. Many kids, you know, second or third graders, they find it boring, they'd rather be playing a video game or outside. So what I do is I talk to them about how writing and reading can be fun. And I use The Adventures of Mo as an example, I do a guided imagery of one of the chapters, and they have a lot of fun, it's very interactive, and that sort of gives them a sense that writing is not just writing your ABCs. It's not boring, it can be a lot of fun. So that presentation seems to go well in elementary schools and for your listeners, if anybody wants to use me as a speaker, it's free. Just contact me and I'd be happy to do it over Zoom.

Ray Loewe04:46

We will give everybody your website so that they can find you at the end of this thing. But you know, as we've been talking over the last year, I started thinking about some of the stuff that you're doing and I used to go out and give a lot of presentations as an adult. And I just started thinking, wow, when you go into a different state, it's really helpful if you can talk about the city or the state that you're in and give some facts that you learned, it kind of breaks the ice. And all of a sudden, I found out, wow, you've got a resource here, for adults who do this kind of thing. And then the other side of that is, grandchildren come into play. When you're a grandparent, and you're trying to bond with your grandchildren, wouldn't it be great to have some fun things to talk about at the beginning of a conversation? Or even better if you're taking a road trip with your grandchildren, to be able to talk a little bit about some of the things that we're going to see and we're going to find out, and so that's the background. So let's start here because we've got tons of these things and we're going to ask me some questions that I'm not going to be able to answer. That's why Luke's here, so I don't feel so bad. So do you want to start with what adults might do with this thing?

Carol Patton06:11

Yeah, I picked two states. One state was really interesting trivia that may be more appealing for adults. And the second state the trivia may be more appealing for kids. But you can go on the website, and you can decide for yourself because obviously, it just depends on the age and your interest level. So okay, Luke, and Ray, tell me what state does this happen in. There's a small town that is called Earth. It's probably the only place on this planet that is named Earth. Do you know the state?

ay Loewe06:46

I have no idea. Luke, you got anything?

Luke Cagno06:48

I can't remember if we talked about this earlier or not. But I can't remember. I think it was Idaho.

Ray Loewe06:57

No, it's got to be a southern state because only southerners would think this way. Right? Okay, so give us the answer.

Carol Patton07:03

Okay, well, these three trivia are all from the same state. So let me give you the other two and then I'll give you the answer. According to state law, all thieves must give authorities a 24-hour oral or written notice of their intended crime before committing it. Apparently, this was supposed to help reduce theft. And apparently, you've got to comply with the law before you break it. That's the second stat.

Ray Loewe07:30

All right. Give us number three.

Carol Patton07:33

Number three, in 2014, there was a small town that voted to reschedule Halloween to October 30th because Halloween conflicted with the local high school Friday night football game.

Luke Cagno07:51

This all sounds like something Texas would do. Is it Texas?

Ray Loewe07:57

We know you cheated because we know you got the answer earlier but you sound good now anyway. Okay, so if I were going to Texas and I wanted to give a speech and I wanted some fun facts, how would I find these on your website?

Carol Patton08:10

Well, you go to the website and go to the footer or the bottom of the website on any of the pages, and there's a footer it says blog, just click on that. Right now 20 State blogs reposted, 30 are completed, we post one week. And I will complete all 50 states, I just haven't done it yet. But you can at least get a lot of rich content on about 20 states right now.

Ray Loewe08:36

Okay, have you got it got any other examples of things that I as an adult would want to know?

Carol Patton08:42

Yeah, you've got to hear this. Do you want me to tell you the state? Because the story is overwhelming.

Ray Loewe08:49

Yeah, so tell us the state and tell us the overwhelming story.

Carol Patton08:52

Okay, this happened in Idaho in 1914. There was a six-year-old girl named Mae, and she was actually mailed from her hometown to where her grandparents lived. And back then, it took many hours by car to drive there. Her parents wanted to send their daughter to visit her grandparents but the train fare was too expensive. However, they discovered that they could mail a package up to 50 pounds for just 53 cents. And guess what. Mae only weighed 45 pounds. So her parents got creative, and they purchased 53 cents in stamps, attached them to her coat and they mailed her and apparently, the post office had to honor that. She traveled the entire distance. It was from Grangeville to Lewiston in Idaho. And she traveled that distance in the trains mail car, and she was safely delivered to her grandmother's home by the mail clerk on duty. So I guess this maybe the first and last time a person was actually mailed, I don't know.

Ray Loewe10:03

I've got two comments on that. Where does child abuse fit in here? Although she was delivered first class, and you know, maybe it wasn't. And then the second thing is trying to figure out what the post office would do today. Do you ever track a package and find out it starts in Idaho, goes to Cleveland, and then someplace in Florida before comes back to Idaho again? 

Carol Patton10:26

Yes, but you know, at least she was the only person in the truck at the time. She wasn't crammed in a seat like you are in airplanes. So she may have had a more comfortable ride, I don't know.

Ray Loewe10:37

Where do you find this stuff?

Carol Patton10:41

It's all out there. It's all out there on the internet. I do a lot of research. As a journalist, I'm used to doing research, so I know how to conduct it. But you just contact a variety of sites, you look under state facts, tourism, kids facts, there's a lot of websites that focus on that. And there's probably 10 sites that I traditionally go to, just to see what they have, and then see what else is out there. So this is how I find it. You know, it can be a couple hours worth of work easily. But it's fun.

Ray Loewe11:13

But you've got it now on your website, under a State blog, and I can find it. Okay, so let's take a different scenario here. Suppose I'm a grandparent, and I'm going on a road trip with my grandchildren. Pick a state that maybe we're going to go to and how do we get our grandchildren fascinated, motivated, and amused about where we're going?

Carol Patton11:39

Sure. I'm sure grandparents and parents are tired of hearing are we there yet? Right? You hear that 1000 times. And I know a lot of parents play the license plate game, how many cars have different license plates? Well, here's another game you can play in the car and your kids can actually learn a lot. For instance, I'll give you the kids state that I chose. This state has a city called Santa Claus. And every holiday it receives over half a million letters at Christmas time. You know, the city says that it responds to each letter, doesn't necessarily honor the request, but what state is the city in? A kid, I think, would be interested in hearing that. The same state also has a park called Wolf Park. If you make a donation to this park, you can get kissed by a friendly wolf. Parents may not be so enthusiastic about that, but the kids would be. And I know a lot of kids play baseball. Where was the first pro baseball game played? It was played in this state all the way back in 1871. So those are the kinds of things that the website has, the kinds of trivia, some are for adults and some are for kids. But you learn and have fun all at the same time. So do you know what state that was in? All three of those?

Luke Cagno12:56

It's got to be in New York, right?

Carol Patton12:58

Nope, 49 more to go.

Ray Loewe13:02

Yeah, I have no idea. So tell us because I don't have time to go online right at the moment and find the answer.

Carol Patton13:10

Indiana. They have Santa Claus, Indiana Wolf Park is in Indiana and again, the first pro baseball game was played in Fort Wayne, Indiana on May 4, 1871.

Ray Loewe13:24

Okay, let me reverse this a little bit. And one of the things in prepping for this is you did send me a list of these fun facts. And let me just read one and you can comment about how it fits into the whole thing. So you had one down here. Speaking of adventures, have you ever heard of a Bronco Charlie? So tell us about Bronco, Charlie.

Carol Patton13:52

It's the Pony Express. Kids learn about the Pony Express, I think in third grade, if I'm not mistaken, but they know all about it, when I go and do the presentations they know. And this is one of the presentations with guided imagery. I say close your eyes, imagine you're on horseback. There's no cell phone, there's no hotels, no TV, no road signs. And you've got to travel a full day as fast as you can to deliver this mail. And so we get into that what would it feel like? Would you be afraid? It could be raining, it could be snowing, it wouldn't matter. You could be really hot. And so they really get into this. And Bronco Charlie was the youngest Pony Express rider. So I asked them how old he was. And I'll get responses anywhere from 2 years old to 82 years old. But Bronco Charlie, I'm gonna say he's 11 and a half. He was 11 and a half because some websites said he was a 11, others say he was 12 so we'll split the difference. So he was 11 and a half. So they love learning about that stuff. And you can make it fun. It's fun for parents and fun for adults.

Ray Loewe 14:59

Okay, Here's another one that you put on your list. Every summer, 550 glass balls are hidden on a US island for tourists to find and keep. What's the name of that island and where is it? And if you don't know, I have the answer here that you fed me earlier.

Carol Patton15:20

Yes, it's Block Island in Rhode Island. And there's an artisan community there, they make these beautiful glass balls, and they hide them all over the island. And they're numbered. So when you find them, they ask you to report the one so they can check the number off and you get to keep them. So one of the stories is about dogs on a hunt to find these glass balls. So, you know, I know some people who've been to Rhode Island, they've never even heard of this. So I'm finding things that are some of them are common, some of them are not. Can I say the one about Michigan, Ray?

Ray Loewe15:59

Sure. 

Carol Patton16:01

Okay. Michigan is the only one in the world that has a floating post office. It's located on the Detroit River, and it's called the J. W. Westcott. I think it's the second. And it's the only boat in the world that delivers not only mail, but packages, and also pizza to crew members stationed on ships that are traveling on the river. The boat is an official Postal Service mailboat, it even has its own zip code. It started doing this since 1952.

Ray Loewe16:37

So do you have to put stamps on the pizza?

Carol Patton16:41

You know, all I can say is I think Uber and DoorDash are in trouble. I don't know.

Ray Loewe16:46

All right. So we're not going to go through all of these because we want them to go to your website and look because that's where you can really get into this. But which state elected the first female or woman to Congress? And I have the answer so you don't have to look it up.

Carol Patton17:07

Well, I have the answer too, but that I'm going to leave that up to you to say the answer.

Ray Loewe17:11

All right, because Luke's not going to know this one. It's Montana.

Luke Cagno17:14

I was going to say Ohio. 

Ray Loewe17:15

Well, Ohio is known for a lot of things in here. Did you have any of these that you picked up when you were cheating and looking at the list?

Luke Cagno17:23

No, I didn't get a chance to read them all.

Ray Loewe17:25

Okay, well, that's good. So that way you don't cut into my time over here. 

Carol Patton17:30

What about Wyoming? You got that one? 

Ray Loewe17:35

No, but go ahead.

Carol Patton17:37

Which state had, well we know it's Wyoming now, but which state has a dirt landing strip reserved for people from Jupiter? It's called the Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport. 

Luke Cagno17:51

Has it been used? 

Carol Patton17:54

If it has, nobody's telling us.

Ray Loewe17:57

You're kidding me? 

Carol Patton18:00

I am not kidding you. I'm not kidding you. So they actually have a dirt landing strip. And I think people from Jupiter, I think they're called Jovians, I'm not sure, I could be mispronouncing that. 

Luke Cagno18:11

I think that's right.

Ray Loewe18:13

Okay, so just a quick rundown of a couple others that are here. Which state invented 911? And I know the answer to that is Nebraska. Last place in the world I would have expected this to happen. And one other one from here. The state nicknamed the mother of presidents. I kind of knew this one because I grew up there. But Ohio, and it's because there are so many presidents that started their life there. So what are some of the creative things that we can do with this? We can teach kids fun things about history and about learning and about doing research.

Carol Patton18:59

Yes. This is a great resource for teachers, they can even play a form of Jeopardy in the classroom by using these trivia questions. They can do extra credit on exams. Teachers can be really creative with this stuff, that's just an example of some things they can do. And even sitting around the dinner table with parents and your kids. You know, if the conversation gets a little stale, you can mention any of these and it launches into a wonderful conversation.

Ray Loewe19:30

I can see this now. We're having pizza with our grandchildren. So which floating post office delivered this? 

Carol Patton19:38

Exactly.

Ray Loewe19:39

I'll tell you I really got I got a kick out of this postage thing. I had been to Hawaii and I know you can mail a coconut from Hawaii to anywhere by putting a stamp on it, and you actually write the message on the coconut. But mailing your daughter or granddaughter I think that's a little much. All right, you got any others in here that will amuse us and enlighten us and fascinate and motivate us?

Carol Patton20:04

Yes. This city's name was decided by a coin toss. If I say the city, you'll know the state. So I'll give you the city in the state. It was Portland, Oregon. Okay. So it had the coin landed on the other side, what would Portland have been called?

Ray Loewe20:28

No idea.

Carol Patton20:31

Boston.

Luke Cagno20:37

So then what would Boston have been called? 

Ray Loewe20:40

I guess it would have been Boston, Massachusetts versus Boston, Oregon. All right, we only have a couple minutes. And we're going to sum up because we want to let people go and look for this. So first of all, give us the website that they're gonna go to again.

Carol Patton20:57

It's Adventuresofmo.com. And then if you want to look at this trivia, scroll all the way down to the bottom to the footer, and you'll see blogs and just click on that. And 20 blogs are there already. 

Ray Loewe21:14

All right. Give us a couple more of some of the more diverse things over here so we can leave people with examples. And then we'll sign off leaving people wanting.

Carol Patton21:25

Okay, where did the country's first train robbery occur?

Ray Loewe21:31

All right, Luke, this is up your alley, go ahead.

Luke Cagno21:35

The first train robbery in the country occurred in Indiana.

Carol Patton21:41

How did you know that? Were you related to the robbers or something?

Ray Loewe21:46

Yeah, it's right. So is that where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were or is it somebody else that pulled this off?

Carol Patton21:53

It's somebody else. I think they were called the Reno brothers. And when I heard that, I thought they were from Nevada, because of Reno, Nevada, but they weren't. And  they stole something like the equivalent of today, a quarter of a million dollars, something like that. So it was a lot of money. Oh, here's one for the musicians out there. The last time the liberty bell rang was more than 150 years ago. What musical notes did the bell strike when it rang?

Ray Loewe22:22

All right, Luke is a guitarist, I'm non-musical here. I bet you have no idea what this is. 

Luke Cagno22:29

I read the start of it, but I didn't get to the end of it. I'm gonna guess it's probably an A.

Carol Patton22:42

No, E-flat. E-flat.

Ray Loewe22:44

Now, who decided this? Was the bell made to do this or was this just what happened?

Carol Patton22:51

I think it's just what happened. I have no idea who decided to make it an E-flat sound or ringing in terms of an E-flat. But let's see if I have any others. Okay, in the 1800s, dozens of shipwrecks happened between Alaska and a chain of US islands. Can you guess the name of these islands?

Ray Loewe23:17

Hawaii.

Luke Cagno23:18

What islands are there around Alaska?

Ray Loewe23:21

Well, I don't know there's Hawaiian Islands and there's the Marshall Islands. And I don't know what else.

Carol Patton23:29

Ever hear of Devil's Peace islands off of California's coast? That's where they are, between California and Alaska. Dozens of shipwrecks happen. I think they're called Farallon Islands too if I'm pronouncing it correctly.

Ray Loewe23:42

You know, there was one other one on here that I thought was interesting. And that had to do with there is a state that if you stand anywhere in the state, you're within 85 miles of one of the Great Lakes.

Carol Patton23:57

Yes. Anywhere you stand in the state. And that's my home state.

Ray Loewe24:02

Well, it makes sense if you look at a map, and I think this is what you're trying to do is get kids to look at a map. Because when you look at the state of Michigan, you got all the Great Lakes around. So it's got to be Michigan, right? 

Carol Patton24:14

Exactly.

Ray Loewe24:15

All right. We're nearing the end over here, give us two or three quick in succession, and then we're going to leave people to do the research on their own.

Carol Patton24:25

Okay, I'll give you two more only and they can be good for kids or adults. Only one state capital has three words. Which state? Only one state has one syllable, which state? And let's see what else. Which state had the most men sign up to fight in the Civil War? Like I said, I have tons of these. And how many of you know the names of the four US presidents whose faces are carved into Mount Rushmore? Not everybody knows that.

Ray Loewe25:01

All right, let me guess at that. It's Roosevelt, Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.

Carol Patton25:06

Okay, you get the prize. 

Ray Loewe25:09

Well, I've been there. But you're right, you wouldn't really know that. Okay, so kind of let's recap, because we can go on and do these for a long time. And, and one of the reasons I knew Carol could do this is we meet for virtual cocktails every Thursday afternoon, and Carol comes up here, and we will not let her escape the afternoon without giving us a few of these. We call them factoids instead of fun facts on the air and she always amuses us with these. But again, let's just kind of recap about the purpose of The Adventures of Mo. It is to get kids engaged in reading, writing, learning, right?

Carol Patton25:54

Learning about the country, the amazing history, and geography of this country.

Ray Loewe25:59

Okay. And anything else you want to say before we sign off?

Carol Patton26:04

Just try a chapter. Or if you don't, go on and look at one of the blogs, because the blogs have a lot of information about history, about fun stuff. It could be anything. Ghost stories,  for instance, and I can't I'll be the one without the answer. What state has the most registered ghost towns in the country? You'd be surprised. I'm not gonna give you the answer.

Ray Loewe26:30

All right. We're leaving that wanting. So, Carol Patton, thanks so much for being with us again. As you do more research and you get more of these fun facts, we're going to have you back again, just because the world needs to know these things. All right. 

Carol Patton26:47

Absolutely. Thanks. That was fun. 

Ray Loewe26:48

Okay. So the adventures of Mo, we'll write this out in our notes so that you can find the website. And Carol, thanks so much for being with us on Changing the Rules again, and Luke, sign us off, please.

Outro  27:04

Thank you for listening to Changing the rules. Join us next week for more conversation, our special guest and to hear more from the luckiest guy in the world.

Transcription:

Intro  00:04

Welcome to Changing the Rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best lives and advice on how you can achieve that too. Join us with your lively host, Ray Lowe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.

Bill Adams00:15

Welcome, everybody. We're sitting here this afternoon, actually, it is afternoon, but you're not supposed to know that. And we're in our brand new studios here in Willow Street, Pennsylvania. And we have a great engineer here, Luke Cagno, who's running our soundboard and who's going to make us sound great. And I have a really exciting, intriguing guest today. And his name is Bill Adams, and we're going to come back to him in a second. I want to remind everybody that the luckiest people in the world are people who create their own lives, design them personally, step into them and live them under their own terms. And unfortunately, we have rules that are given to us by people all throughout our lives. Our parents gave us rules. The church gives us rules. The schools give us rules, our jobs give us rules. And the problem with rules is that rules either have to be followed, or they're things that we can't do. And I think it was Steve Jobs, the president of Apple that came in and said, you know, if you're living your life under other people's rules, you're not living your life. And we have a really great guest today, who I think is pretty good at breaking the rules, or at least changing them and making them do what he wants to do, Bill Adams. And before I let Bill Adams talk, let me give you a couple of key points about his life. And Bill, you can correct me if I'm wrong on these. So, Bill Adams guided Armstrong World Industries through some of the stormiest years in its 134-year history. He's a native of Dubuque, Iowa, he joined Armstrong in 1956, as an advertising copywriter. He became chairman and president in March of 1988, just as the booming economy of the 1980s was about to stagnate, and he found himself coping with a harsh business climate that shoved Armstrong into unprofitability. He led the firm's successful defense against takeovers and brought them back to profitability before he actually retired in 1996, I believe. So, for those of you who don't know Armstrong, it was a public company, it was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and it was a $2 billion company with 10,000 employees. And so we have a gentleman here who managed a good-sized company and Bill Armstrong, welcome to Changing the Rules.  Thanks. Good to be here. Okay. Now, I described you originally as a hard-charging business executive, and you corrected me on that. So take a minute and tell us about your management style because I think it's important in the way you think, Well, I didn't object to, I want to modify the idea of hard-charging, there is this image, the CEOs are almost like commanders on a bridge, who are saying do this and do that. Your role really I leading an organization. First of all, I think is to have the longest planning view of anybody there. Where are we going, essentially the key choosing and trying to shape the organization to compete in the right markets against the right competition with the right offer. And then you got to think about the structure. Do you have the, you know, the financial structure, the employees structure, the ethical structure all the way through? So it's not so much hard charging is it is, I think, essentially finding out where you can make a difference. I'll say this, the decisions that are brought to you which you often share with the board are not the easy ones they've been taken care of. They're the tougher ones, the toughest one of all have to do with people. So I'd like to look at that job has being a lucky one for me. I got there because of good luck, which I won't get into now. Turns of events which worked out in my favor, but I like to look at it as being one who serves the company to get where it wants to go.

Ray Loewe04:29

Okay, so now let's get into what we really want to talk about. We've established your credentials over here and what you've been able to do. But you're also an expert, I'm going to use a bad word, at retirement, because you've been retired for how long now?

Bill Adams04:47

Little over a quarter of a century.

Ray Loewe04:49

Okay. So you hate the word retirement as much as I do. So what's the substitute word?

Bill Adams04:56

Well rewirement, I think you're rewired. Let me point out when you're in any part of the organization, you could be a plant manager, you could manage an accounts payable department, you have to use your time well, that's the thing where you're showing your stuff. In a company like Armstrong, you have all the financial resources, you want the human resources, the thing you got to do is decide how best to spend your time, where you're gonna make a difference. So you're very careful how you're using that time. And then all of a sudden, you're no longer employed. And you can put that time to any use you want to. People who study this say one of the very first things that people retired realize is: I'm on vacation, and I'm on vacation next week and next month, which means I really can choose what to do with my time. Other times it was chosen by others. So the question is, what are you going to do it and Ray, I think there's so much written about preparing for the financial side of retirement, I think maybe it would be of service to people approaching retirement if more were written about what are you going to do with the last third of your life Adult life. And do the math. Let's say you retire at age 62, you live to age 85, go do the arithmetic. And let's suppose that you become an adult at 18, rather than the arithmetic, you're going to find the 1/3 of your life in this non-employed period. Now there are some who retire from their main vocation and go into something else, small or large. But essentially, I think that's the feeling in the planning probably is, what am I going to do with this time? What am I going to pursue here? And right alongside of it, what am I going to do to help others do what they want to do?

Ray Loewe06:51

Okay, I should ask, I shouldn't ask you the question, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. I made an observation about you a long time ago. And we've known each other for a little while, but not an extended period of time. But I think Bill is a person who really follows what fascinates and motivates him. And I think that that's one of the things that has driven him during this period of rewirement. So talk a little bit about some of the things that you've done. And how long do you continue to do them?

Bill Adams07:26

Well, a lot of it is just personal pursuit rather selfish. That sounds neat, I'd like to be part of that. I played golf ever since I was 12. And I played a lot of tournaments. And I've always been fascinated by the role of the golf rules official. Many people don't realize that the golf rules officials, they're not to exact penalties on people but to prevent them. to help the golfer not make mistakes, you know, and you know, you help the guy who hit a ball into the creek, determine where he places the next shot. So I went to this PGA rules school and qualified at a very difficult three-hour exam, and then went out of the course, working with other rules officials, and I could use the grand term giving back to the game. But no, I give it to me, I've been fascinated with how this works and how much there is to learn about golf rules officials. Now for how long? I did it for seven years until I didn't want to do it anymore. There was no more fire in the belly. You know, you drive into the sun towards the greater Philadelphia area seven in the morning, and you drive back into the sun coming back to Lancaster. And that's when you stop. And I don't know if that's a principle, but it's one that I think might help as people think about this. I don't think I want to start this because I don't want to do it for a long, long time. You don't have to. You're not drawing a paycheck, you know, to be in a particular job, you can simply say, I want to do this until I don't want to do it anymore. If I could use another example of, in the early period, I went down to the University of Tennessee and taught if you will I call it that in the MBA graduate school. Actually, I went down there and I found myself learning more than teaching. Never mind how I got connected with that. But what I found with that was what I really wanted to was pursue an engagement with younger people, college-age people with a faculty, it was a brand new experience for me. And then there came a time when I just ran out of steam and said thank you very much, I won't be doing this anymore. That by the way were short stints, two to three weeks at a time twice a year. But it was just a great experience. And as I said I learned so much In doing that,

Ray Loewe10:01

You know, let's back up a bit, your family has always been important to you. So describe your family, and then talk a little bit about the time you allocated your family during your work experience.

Bill Adams10:15

Well, we have four children. And they have spawned 10 grandchildren right at this point. I married Susan Cole, who I met on a blind date in 1954. And we've been married for 65 years. And when I talk about my family I've got to start there, because when I was in our international operations, I was going away for three weeks at a time. And here's Susan home with four kids and all the things that have to do with it and she ran the household, she kept the family together. As far as my own time, I tried to put in a rule, if you will, changing the rules, okay? From midnight Friday, until four o'clock Sunday, I'm doing no business. I'm not opening the briefcase, and I'm not sure I could do that in today's role or social media, here, but I could then. And it may be a matter of going back on the office phone Friday night and finishing up some things. But it enabled me to really set aside that time and do lots of things with our kids and for our kids.  Everything from going to rock concerts to going to baseball games with my son. And yeah, family was important. I have to say if St. Peter taps me at the pearly gates and says, what did you accomplish down there on earth? I want to mention the family first. Armstrong. yeah, that's in there, rewirement is in there.

Ray Loewe11:42

Okay, and that's still part of your life, right? You know, so what do you do with your family right now, as part of your requirement concept over here?

Bill Adams11:51

Stay in touch with them, it's so easy to do it now. I just looked today on WhatsApp at a posting from our granddaughter who two weeks ago went to Botswana with the Peace Corps. Now, there was a time years ago you wouldn't hear from him for two years. So we're staying in touch. We gathered 30 of them to play a lake at the Adirondacks in July. And that was 30 out of 34 of our extended family. So you know, we're working going with them. And you know, often you'll hear someone say they retired and spend time with her grandchildren. While I want to spend time with all the kids and watch them develop. You know, last week, our only son or third of the birth order turned 59. Now I thought woah, I can't have kids in their 60s. But I do and they're fascinating people. I will mention this too. I spent a lot of time in our international operations and got to go to a lot of neat places on somebody else's money. But one of the things we pursued in this requirements, Susan I did, was to go to cities and places with an entirely different view. I probably went to London, I think I counted one time, 50 times in my business career. But then Susan I would go back to London and rent a flat, or apartment or furnished villa for two weeks. And just decide every day, what do you want to do, it's raining, let's stay in, you know, sit by the coal stove and if you know, let's choose this, let's go to Stratford upon Avon and see a Shakespearean play. And that was a neat way to kind of indulge your interest and pursue what interests you. And so we've been traveling to South America, Italy, you know, all around the world, in fact, went two months ago to Iceland, which was on our bucket list. And that's part of being one of the luckiest guys in the world, to be able to have the financial flexibility to do that and to have the good health at age 88 to be able to do that.

Ray Loewe14:00

You know, you're still a young guy, though. Long as you think young, you're still a young guy. 

Bill Adams14:05

Well, yes, but age has a limit.

Ray Loewe14:06

It does and so let's talk about that briefly, not so much from a negative standpoint, but one of the things I think we have to know is age does create problems. And I think the luckiest people in the world get around them pretty fast. So I think you've built that into your picture to a large extent. Talk to me about aging.  Well, when you when you're an octogenarian things go wrong, and they do when you're in your 60s. I never thought I'd be, you know, wearing hearing aids and they're very helpful. I've had three operations on my right eye. Thank goodness, I have cornea specialists at Hopkins that know just what to do, very lucky on that. But it hasn't slowed you down. 

Bill Adams14:58

Yeah, of course, it's slowed me down. But it hasn't propped me down thank God in a wheelchair, you know, I may hit that sometime. But things you know you just accommodate to it. This is the first year since I was 12 years old that I have not played a full round of golf. I played some nine-hole golf. And part of that's a physical limitation and a part of it was because of an injury from a fall. And that's one thing I developed now is the ability to fall down. I'm very good at it. And you'll see when I came into the studio, I came in today with a cane, this is not a good day for my balance. 

Ray Loewe15:41

So okay, so let's go back to these people now that are entering the best third of their life or the last third of their life or how you want to put it there. You've had an interesting viewpoint in the way you've looked at this. So what is it that you would tell people to do? I mean, forget the basics of you know, stay healthy and get financially secure. Get into the stuff that makes life rich and enlightened.

Bill Adams16:13

Well, I loath to give a general prescription. But I can comment on a few things from my own personal experience and some of the things I've watched. But people are so different in their outlook on life, their interests, their financial situation, their health, their family relationships. So to say now, here are the three principles for happy retirement. No. I do say from my own experience, I've learned to be a little selfish maybe. As you come out of this vacation period, hey, I'm no longer working, I'm on vacation this week, and next week, and next month. Pick out the things that really interest you and I think you should get the greatest satisfaction out of things that interest you that help other people. Or you can go in and serve and literally, I'll mention for example, Susan, I for a couple of years, helped serve breakfast five days a week to the people of food insecurity, who were coming to First Methodist Church. I really took an interest in the bright side Opportunity Center down southwest Lancaster helping raise money for that. To provide a place where kids and adults in the southwest sector of Lancaster could come for everything from after-school classes to physical fitness and things like that. I think the greatest satisfaction comes where you'll be able to help others. Well, you know, I think this is a good place to stop, though I think what I got out of this is that you have to keep an open mind, you have to follow what fascinates and motivates you, you have to do what you want to do until you don't want to do it anymore. But you always have to do something. Yeah, let me add if you could a capstone to this. And that's my faith. I really believe the universe is unfolding as it should. And I'm a basic, incurable optimist. I think that helps a lot here. And part of it is God's in charge, it may not seem like it sometimes. But I am aware of that. And I realized my weakness and the strength I can gain from my faith through all this. So when things go wrong, that's okay. You were not guaranteed about a bed of roses. And you've got some higher power to look after you and to aspire to. And I think that's awfully important.

Ray Loewe18:51

Well, you know, thanks so much for sharing your thinking, your wisdom, your experience with us. And we've been talking with Bill Adams, and I think we're done. I think we've reached a good spot in how to think about this world of the last third of your life or however you want to look at it and Luke, why don't you sign us off and we'll be back next week with another guest. 

Outro  19:18

Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules. Join us next week for more conversation, our special guest, and to hear more from the luckiest guy in the world.